Jonah 1: Jonah Runs And God Catches...

If you want to open up your Bibles, we're in the book of Jonah this morning.

And if you're in a pew Bible, the ESV pew Bible, it's on page 658, the NIV pew Bible, it's 1436.

If you're like me, what I end up doing is just find in the middle of my Bible and start going left.

And so I'll just look until I hit Jonah, and eventually I get there.

Do you know what word associations are?

The word association is when someone says something and then you say back the first thing that comes to your mind.

So if I say day and, you would say day and night.

Peanut butter and?

Jonah and the?

Whale.

That's right.

When you think of Jonah, you're probably thinking about a prophet in the belly of a big fish.

And the book of Jonah is so much more than that.

And so Jonah is unlike many other prophetic books because Jonah will focus on seven words of the prophet Jonah in Jonah 3.

But really the book of Jonah is about the life of Jonah.

It's a biography of Jonah.

It's about God's call on Jonah to preach a message of repentance to a distant and dangerous people.

We'll get there in a second.

Jonah is a very dramatic, vivid book with a lot of changing scenes.

I mean, chapter 1 takes place on a boat being ravaged by a tempest in the Mediterranean Sea.

And then chapter 2 takes place in the belly of a whale.

Chapter 3 takes place in the city of Nineveh.

The capital of Assyria in the 8th century.

And we're actually brought into the very throne room of Nineveh.

And then in chapter 4, we find ourselves on the outskirts of Nineveh with Jonah.

Where Jonah awaits and is hoping for God just to lay bare the city of Nineveh.

But what Jonah gets is an object lesson in God's mercy and kindness and pity.

Jonah was a real person.

All these events happen.

This isn't a parable.

This isn't an allegory.

This is a historical account.

And this historical account teaches something to us.

It's didactic.

You see, ultimately, the book of Jonah is about God.

About God's heart for those who are perishing.

For those who are lost.

And so, over the next few weeks, we're going to learn a lot about God's heart.

And we're going to learn about some of our wayward tendencies.

In God's call on our lives.

But here's what's going to ring true.

Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Anyone.

Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

We see that happening in chapter 1.

We'll see it happen in chapter 2.

We'll see it happen in chapter 3.

Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be delivered.

Our prayer.

My prayer.

Is that as we go through the book of Jonah.

God will form in us His evangelistic heart for all people.

For people to come to know Him as the God over all.

As the God who saves.

As the one true God.

And as a result, my prayer is that we as a church will seek to make Christ known to those who are perishing in our city.

That God will burden us with a heart for the lost.

So instead of a word association when you associate Jonah with a whale.

I think what we're going to realize is the association with Jonah is this.

When you hear the word Jonah.

You'll need to be thinking God's heart for the lost.

Because everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Jonah chapter 1 has two scenes in it.

Jonah 1 · chapter mention

It's a great story.

Two scenes.

The first scene is this.

Jonah runs from God.

Second scene.

God catches Jonah.

So let's dive in and let's look at this.

So scene 1.

Verses 1-3.

Jonah runs from God.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai.

Saying arise.

Go to Nineveh the great city.

That great city.

And call out against it.

For their evil has come up before me.

Right from the beginning we're introduced to a particular name of God.

You see that word Lord?

In your Bibles do you see how it's all capitalized?

L-O-R-D.

They're all capital letters.

Underneath that is the Hebrew name Yahweh.

The personal name of God.

This is the name God revealed himself to Moses in Exodus 3.

When Moses revealed that he was going to deliver his people from Egypt.

And so what from the beginning we're introduced to is God, Yahweh, is the deliverer.

And he has a message for Jonah to proclaim to a particular people.

Which brings us to this guy named Jonah.

Jonah son of Amittai.

There's not much spoken of him here.

It was just like Jonah son of Amittai.

This is the guy.

But in 2 Kings 14.25, Jonah, the son of Amittai, is referenced.

It's the same guy.

And so that allows us to place him at a certain place in time.

And so Jonah was a prophet during Jeroboam 2.

He was a prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century B.C.

And here's why that's interesting.

Jonah was a prophet in Samaria in the northern kingdom of Israel right before Samaria was sacked.

Do you remember who sacked Samaria?

Assyria.

The Ninevites.

And so this prophet is going to go preach the message to the people who will eventually be used by God to sack Samaria.

Speaking of Nineveh.

Nineveh.

Its remains lie on the Tigris River on the outskirts of modern day Mosul, Iraq.

It was the capital, the nerve center of Assyria.

And though all Assyrians were image bearers of God, they were notoriously aggressive and brutal.

They were a major player for imperial dominance in the ancient Near East.

They were very proficient at psychological warfare.

As one of my seminary profs would say, they were one of the early terrorists.

For example, after defeating a city, it wouldn't be unusual for the Assyrians to impale people from that city.

Impale them anally with a huge, huge pole.

And then they would dig a hole and put the butt end of that pole in the hole.

And they would lift this person up as a flag of sorts.

A spectacle that showed the Assyrian dominance.

It would have been graphic.

It would have been terrifying.

But it wasn't just one person they would do this to.

They would surround the city with these kinds of flags after they would defeat it.

They were brutal people.

These are not innocent Ninevites.

They were conducting a campaign of terror in the ancient Near East.

This is the Assyria Jonah knew.

Jonah is called to do something.

He's called to call out against the city of Nineveh.

He's called to call out against it.

To preach against it.

To say, stop doing what you're doing.

It was a message of repentance.

And we're told why Jonah is called to preach against it.

For their evil has come up against me.

God, Yahweh, was aware, thoroughly aware,

of the sinfulness of these Ninevites.

And so God has called Jonah to go and preach against them.

They've done evil in God's sight.

God is holy and just.

He does something about it.

Now, what's really interesting here is this.

The Assyrians worshipped a different God than Yahweh.

But notice.

Even though these Assyrians did not acknowledge Yahweh to be their God.

God holds them accountable for their sinfulness.

For their evil that has risen to Him.

The God of the Bible is the God of all nations.

All people everywhere are accountable to Him.

Whether they acknowledge Him as their God.

Or even if they acknowledge His existence.

God never sweeps evil under the rug.

So what this means for us is this.

Everyone in the city of Kenosha is accountable to God.

Everyone.

Everybody in the city of Kenosha is accountable to God.

And just as God sent Jonah to make known a message to a people,

God is sending us to make a message known to the city of Kenosha.

To call people to repentance and faith in Christ.

Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

God sends Jonah to Nineveh.

And so it should be no surprise to us that our Savior King Jesus

tells us to go to the nations to make disciples.

What we see here is God's great missionary heart.

He has always had a heart for all people to worship Him with everything they've got.

This sense of arise, go, call.

In Jonah 1-2, there's urgency to that.

There's priority to that.

In verse 3, we see Jonah's response.

And it kind of takes us by surprise, doesn't it?

Jonah responds immediately.

We've got to give him that.

Look at verse 3.

But Jonah rose to flee.

He's getting out of town.

He jumps on the first ship to Tarshish.

Now, that might sound weird in your ears.

Tarshish.

Tarshish.

Everybody, just try to say Tarshish.

1-2-3.

Tarshish.

It's not easy to say.

Now say Tarshish.

1-2-3.

Tarshish.

There's something to it, isn't it?

Feels good coming off the lips.

Notice Tarshish shows up three times in verse 3.

But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish.

So he paid the fare and went on board to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

There's some emphasis.

Do you know why?

Tarshish was most likely the most westerly city in the known world of the time.

So where Jonah was, he was in northern Israel and he used to go east to Nineveh.

And so what Jonah does, he's like, I am out of here.

He jumps on the first ship he can get onto.

Pays a fare.

He'll probably be on the ship for a year to get to the most westerly, remotest place on the face of the earth.

Jonah's on the run.

Jonah's on the run.

He doesn't want to go to Nineveh.

And this is blatant disobedience.

Willful disobedience to God.

God's not thrown by it though.

We'll see that in a second.

The other phrase that you need to see here is from the presence of the Lord.

It's also repeated twice in verse 3.

Jonah wasn't just trying to get away from Nineveh.

He was trying to get away from his God.

He wanted to get as far away from God as he could.

And the very fact that he jumps a ship just shows how desperate he is.

Jews were landlubbers.

They didn't like going on ships.

He jumps a ship to be on it for a year to get to Tarshish.

He's desperate.

He wants out.

But you know what?

We're never told why.

We'll learn why in Jonah chapter 4.

Jonah 4 · chapter mention

I got a question for you this morning.

Are you running from God's call on your life?

As a Christian, are you running from God's call on your life to make Christ known to those who are perishing around you?

Are you avoiding it?

Do you have your head in the sand?

You might not jump a ship for Tarshish, but maybe you've sought to escape in some other way.

Let me just point you to something.

Aren't you glad that when God the Father sent Jesus the Son to come and die and be raised again,

aren't you glad that Jesus didn't run the other way?

Aren't you glad that Jesus came, the ultimate missionary for us?

Well, scene one ends with Jonah on deck of a Phoenician ship sailing to Tarshish.

I love saying it.

And we're left with tension.

Because seriously, who runs from God and it's okay?

There seems to be conflict.

There seems to be conflict between God and Jonah.

How's this kind of thing turn out?

You know how a ship has its name written on the stern, on the back?

You know what I'm talking about?

If you walk down by the marina, you'll see things like the Mary Jean or Wind Walker or Bobby 2.

Jonah gets on this Phoenician ship and in his mind, that ship's name is the Escape.

But what we're going to see happen is God has already got this ship named, baby.

This ship is called the Prophet Catcher.

And little does Jonah know that he's on board.

And Jonah may run, but God is going to catch him in order to change him.

And not only is he going to change Jonah, he's going to catch and change a crew of polytheistic sailors.

And he's going to change them.

And then eventually, God is going to do a change of Jonah that's going to result in 120,000 Ninevites repenting.

It had to happen.

This is God's mercy, what we're about to read.

So scene one, Jonah is on the run.

Jonah runs from God, but God's not freaking out.

Scene two, God catches Jonah.

All right, here's a technical note.

There is an unfortunate break in your ESV Bible.

If you're reading in the ESV Bible, in between verse 6 and verse 7, there's a heading that says,

Jonah is thrown into the sea, which is true.

But it's unfortunate because verses 4 through 16 are all one beautiful unit.

They shouldn't be interrupted.

And that unit, 4 through 16, is carefully designed to hold together to make a really important point.

I want to show you what that point is in just a second.

But scene two starts with God hurling a great wind onto the sea.

And it forms a tempest.

And it is chaotic.

And these mariners on this boat start freaking out.

Now these guys, they've done a lot of sailing.

And so for this to make them so afraid in verses 4 and 5, it means this was a crazy storm.

Crazy.

And what we see in verses 5 and 6 is that these sailors, these seasoned sailors, start crying out.

Each cries out to his own God.

Do you see that there?

It's very important to note that.

There's going to be a change.

They start striving.

They lighten the load.

And in contrast, Jonah goes down below deck and is sleeping.

Now I'm not a psychologist.

But there's something weird going on there.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Crazy storm.

Guy sleeping down there.

He's like in denial.

He doesn't care.

Well, the captain goes down.

Wakes Jonah up.

And he says something very interesting in verse 6.

So the captain came and said to him,

What do you mean, you sleeper?

What are you doing sleeping?

All hands on deck, buddy.

Arise.

Call out to your God.

Now look at verse 2.

Arise.

Go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it.

Jonah would have got the point.

God's there.

Jonah, wake up.

You're on the prophet catcher.

I'm doing a work.

The captain wakes him up.

There's an echo of God in that.

He doesn't want these people to perish on his boat.

Verse 7, there's a sense of panic and dread on the ship.

Sailors are asking for an explanation of what's going on.

And so they do what they only know how to do to get an explanation.

They cast lots, which is a way of kind of divining direction.

Who can explain this to us?

They cast lots.

God into sovereignty pulls up who?

Jonah.

And so these sailors, in verse 8, come to Jonah and pepper him with questions.

And what they're essentially doing is,

Jonah, will you explain the lot fell on you?

Why is this happening to us?

Splash.

Splash.

And then in verse 9,

we have the very first quote of Jonah.

Jonah, the first thing he says in the book of Jonah.

What's happening to us?

Jonah says,

I wasn't there, so I don't know.

I am a Hebrew.

And I fear the Lord.

The God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.

If I were one of the sailors, you know,

I'd be like, okay, okay, okay.

Okay, you're a Hebrew.

I pick up on the accent.

I buy it.

Okay, okay, okay.

You fear the Lord, the God of heaven,

who made the sea and dry land.

Okay, I'm familiar with Genesis 1 enough to know

that Yahweh made the sea and the dry land.

I get it.

I get it.

But you fear the Lord?

Jonah,

Jonah,

you want a ship bound for Tarshish?

Captain just woke you up.

What do you mean you fear the Lord?

It rings hollow.

And it's supposed to.

Because it is.

There is a major gap

between Jonah's profession

and his practice.

Jonah is saying one thing,

I fear the Lord.

But he's doing another.

He's running in disobedience.

I know the Jonah complex.

Do you?

Your profession doesn't match up with your practice?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Do you?

Well,

we turn to verse 10

and these sailors,

in great contrast to Jonah,

they hear what he says

and they were exceedingly afraid.

The Hebrew reads,

they feared with a great fear.

And they say,

what is this you have done?

They knew he was fleeing

from the presence of the Lord.

He told them.

And so these guys

are putting it together.

Jonah's God,

Jonah's God,

the Lord,

Yahweh.

He is the one behind all this.

And it seems that Jonah and his God

have some unfinished business

and we're getting caught up in it

and his God is amazing.

Their fear is a real fear.

Not a professed fear.

They really are afraid.

They really are aware

that they are in the presence

of a God

who is doing something

that is way beyond them.

The irony is thick.

Jonah,

the prophet,

who's supposed to know God,

doesn't really fear God.

And he was sleeping.

And these sailors,

who are polytheistic,

they were worshipping

all sorts of different gods

when they got on board this boat.

So,

these polytheistic sailors

are now encountering

the one true living God

and their response

is what Jonah should have been.

Fear,

reverence.

What do we do?

How do we respond?

How do we respond?

The sailors,

realizing that they have

an expert in Yahweh on board,

in verse 11,

starts saying,

Jonah,

you know this God.

What do we do?

How do we stop this?

Tell us what we must do

to be saved.

Jonah.

But Jonah doesn't point to God.

He points to himself.

In verse 12,

Jonah gives the explanation.

We're in this mess, guys,

on account of me,

so throw me in the sea,

and the sea will be made quiet.

And when you read that,

it's really hard to know

as you're reading it

whether or not

Jonah is being noble

or he's just kind of

thrown in the towel.

You don't know.

And it's intentional.

The author of Jonah

wants you not to know.

He wants you to be

experiencing some tension.

In verses 13 and 14,

the sailors

strive for Jonah.

They dig in their oars.

They try to make it to land.

Jonah didn't care about

these sailors,

but these sailors

cared about Jonah.

Ironic.

They dig in

and they start moving to land,

but God in His sovereignty

clicks up the intensity

of the storm.

They're going nowhere.

And so these sailors

are only left

with one option.

And they realize

Jonah's God

is limiting them

to just one option.

And that option

is to throw

Jonah

into the sea.

And it's in verse 14

that something

really amazing happens.

Would you look at verse 14?

Therefore they called out

to the Lord,

O Lord,

let us not perish

for this man's life

and lay not on us

innocent blood

for you, O Lord,

have done as it pleased you.

Lord, O Lord, O Lord.

Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh.

Yahweh, Yahweh, Yahweh.

They are crying out,

not each to his own God,

they are together

crying out

to the one true God,

Yahweh.

You see what happened?

At the beginning

of this section,

they were polytheists.

God is now moving them

towards monotheism

and the fear

of the one true God,

Yahweh.

These sailors know

that they are in the hands

of Jonah's God

and they've realized

that they are accountable

to Him.

That's why they say,

don't hold this man's blood

against us.

What happens here

is that these sailors

are calling on the name

of the Lord.

Everyone who calls

on the name of the Lord

will be saved.

They call on Him

and God does something amazing.

In verses 15 and 16,

the sailors throw Jonah

into the water

and remember,

you see what happens?

Quiet.

It might ring a bell.

At the end of Mark 4,

Jesus speaks a word

to the Sea of Galilee

and there is silence.

God is sovereign

over these things.

This account ends

with these sailors

throwing Jonah

into the sea

and the result

is peace.

Deliverance.

God has delivered them.

Yahweh has delivered them.

They then fear

a great fear.

They're no longer

panicking.

They're worshiping.

They make sacrifice.

They make vows.

To who?

To the Lord.

Yahweh.

These sailors have turned

from trusting in false gods

to trusting in the one true God.

God has not only caught

His wayward prophet,

but it seems as though

He's caught some wayward sailors

and He's changed them.

There's something about this passage

that you can't see

with English eyes.

It was originally written

in Hebrew

and there's something

going on here

that's worth pointing out.

But in order to do that,

I've got to talk weddings.

You ready?

We married a couple here yesterday.

It was great.

Huge wedding.

Massive wedding party.

Typically what happens

is a wedding party,

groomsmen and bridesmaids

will come down,

walk arm in arm

down this center aisle

and they will move out

and we'll have bridesmaids

on this side

and groomsmen on this side.

You know what I'm talking about?

And so they pair

and then they separate

and what happens is

you have both sides

of the wedding party

kind of filling in

and moving towards the center.

all in anticipation

of the coming in

of the bride

and the bride

and the groom

standing together

in front of everybody.

We have that going on

in this passage.

If you'll notice

at the beginning of chapter 1

verse 4 and 5

and at 15 and 16

you have someone

hurling something

into the sea.

fear.

And then there's

great fear.

And then there's

calling out.

And what happens

in this is that

there is a movement

in these verses

towards verses 9 and 10

which is where the author

wants our eyes to fall.

And there lies

the emphasis

of this passage.

Fear.

And it's in contrast

to each other.

Jonah

says he fears the Lord

but he really doesn't.

These sailors

really do.

And it's ironic

because the prophet

who's supposed to fear

the Lord

doesn't.

And these polytheistic sailors

who are not supposed

to fear the Lord

they do.

and the result

one is delivered

the other is thrown overboard.

The sailors are delivered.

The prophet's thrown overboard.

What this is all pointing to

is the importance

of fearing the Lord.

Everyone

anyone who calls upon

the name of the Lord

will be saved.

The point of this passage

is this.

God is willing

and able to deliver

anybody who calls on him.

The sailors were willing

but Jonah was not.

God delivers the sailors

but Jonah is thrown

into the sea.

So you could say

something like this.

The prophet catcher

caught the prophet

but then threw him back.

But he wasn't done.

As we'll see next week

starting in 117

God has had a bigger plan

all along.

In order for God

to change this prophet's heart

he had to get this prophet

into a whale.

And then in the whale

what you'll see

is this prophet

crying out to God.

Salvation belongs

to the Lord.

Making sacrifice.

Making vows.

There's a couple things

I want you to see.

God's heart

has always been

that all people

in all places

would call upon him

with all their heart.

I'm just going to close

with a passage

from Malachi.

Malachi.

Malachi 1.11

From the rising of the sun

to its setting

my name will be great

among the nations

for I am a great king

says the Lord of hosts

and my name will be feared

among the nations.

Word association.

Day and night.

Peanut butter and jelly.

Jonah and God's heart

for the lost.

Everyone who calls

on the name of the Lord Jesus

will be saved.

Let me pray.

Oh God,

would you

help us to

not only fear you

with all of our hearts

but God to

be faithful

to your call

on our life

to make Christ known

to those who are perishing.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.